06 - Use of electronic health record data in the field: conducting randomized studies across diverse practice settings

Abstract

This December 11, 2014 think tank discussed issues around the methodologies for optimizing the robustness and use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) data for a variety of clinical research purposes. Experts in both accessing EHR data and study design and analysis methodology using EHR data for research highlighted the challenges, solutions, and needs in this area. Given the potential broad scope of this topic, participants were asked to focus primarily on issues related to the use of EHR on the back end (i.e. the imperfect data as currently collected), rather than strategies to improve the quality of EHR data collected on the ‘front end’ (e.g., data entered by clinicians).